In order to help you look "under the hood" at work in digital media studies or work that employs digital media in the context of English studies, broadly conceived, and to help you design your own research programs, this assignment asks you to create a short documentary of a specific research and/or teaching project in which you are interested. To complete the documentary, you will need to
find a participant or team of participants (e.g., a faculty member or advanced graduate student) willing to be the subject of the documentary,
interview the participants about their project,
observe the participants at work,
collect and record documents and media assets that help tell a story about the research (text, audio recordings, still images, video),
prepare a 5- to 10-minute documentary in a digital format that contains at least three media (e.g. an audio slideshow containing text, audio, and still images),
prepare a 2-minute "making of" clip that reflects on the process of preparing your short documentary, addressing a topic/problem of your choice related to our course readings and discussions,
prepare a 1-minute clip of "outtakes" or "deleted scenes" from your documentary.
We ask that you pay particular attention in the case study to the difference that digital media make in the design, conduct, and presentation of a research project in the field--. Specifically, you might investigate questions such as the following:
What unique challenges or opportunities did digital media present to the design of the project (e.g., the research questions, methods, or scope)?
What resources (funding, equipment, permissions, access) did the researchers have to acquire in order to work with digital media?
What skill sets did the researcher(s) employ that were specific to digital media?
What new skill sets did the researchers have to acquire in order to work with digital media?
Was the researchers' decision to work in/on digital media accepted by their departmental, university, or disciplinary peers?
Have the researchers found an outlet// for disseminating their work? Was that outlet difficult to find? Are they satisfied with it? Will colleagues recognize its value? If they haven't found an outlet for their work, are they confident that appropriate outlets exist?
While you might touch on all of the questions listed above, the constraints of the short form documentary will require you to chose a focus for your story. What aspect of your participants' work on/in digital media seems most worth highlighting for an audience?
In addition to providing a close look at a particular research project, this assignment should serve as preparation for constructing your own research proposal and as an exploration in digital storytelling / documentary.
Resources
We will help you find participants/subjects for your documentary (e.g., all of the digital media faculty are fair game), but you should feel free to investigate almost any project that interests you. For instance, you might want to work with participants in disciplines outside of English studies (e.g., modern languages, history, education, women's studies, and so on) if they are doing work that might help you design your own research program. You might also work with participants outside of OSU (e.g., at another nearby college or university), though keep in mind that you will need easy and ongoing access to your participants and their workspaces.
You are free to develop your documentary with any tools and formats in which you already have expertise and experience, but we will provide you with tools and workshops throughout the quarter that will allow you to complete the assignments even if you have never produced a digital media "text."
Evaluative Criteria and Grading
Given the time constraints of the quarter system (especially this nine-week Winter Quarter!), we are far more concerned with the quality of your reflections concerning research on/in digital media than the production values of your final report. That said, we do think that the scope of the project allows time for you to think carefully about the sorts of media you employ and how you employ them in concert to tell a focused story about a research project. When evaluating your documentary, we will as the following questions:
Does the documentary employ at least three media?
Do the documentary proper, the "making of" clip, and the "outtake" clip meet the specified length requirements?
Does the documentary focus effectively on some particular aspect of, or question about, conducting research on/in digital media?
Does the "making of" clip engage thoughtfully with our course readings and/or discussion?
This assignment will count 50% of your final grade.
Overview
In order to help you look "under the hood" at work in digital media studies or work that employs digital media in the context of English studies, broadly conceived, and to help you design your own research programs, this assignment asks you to create a short documentary of a specific research and/or teaching project in which you are interested. To complete the documentary, you will need toWe ask that you pay particular attention in the case study to the difference that digital media make in the design, conduct, and presentation of a research project in the field--. Specifically, you might investigate questions such as the following:
While you might touch on all of the questions listed above, the constraints of the short form documentary will require you to chose a focus for your story. What aspect of your participants' work on/in digital media seems most worth highlighting for an audience?
In addition to providing a close look at a particular research project, this assignment should serve as preparation for constructing your own research proposal and as an exploration in digital storytelling / documentary.
Resources
We will help you find participants/subjects for your documentary (e.g., all of the digital media faculty are fair game), but you should feel free to investigate almost any project that interests you. For instance, you might want to work with participants in disciplines outside of English studies (e.g., modern languages, history, education, women's studies, and so on) if they are doing work that might help you design your own research program. You might also work with participants outside of OSU (e.g., at another nearby college or university), though keep in mind that you will need easy and ongoing access to your participants and their workspaces.You are free to develop your documentary with any tools and formats in which you already have expertise and experience, but we will provide you with tools and workshops throughout the quarter that will allow you to complete the assignments even if you have never produced a digital media "text."
Evaluative Criteria and Grading
Given the time constraints of the quarter system (especially this nine-week Winter Quarter!), we are far more concerned with the quality of your reflections concerning research on/in digital media than the production values of your final report. That said, we do think that the scope of the project allows time for you to think carefully about the sorts of media you employ and how you employ them in concert to tell a focused story about a research project. When evaluating your documentary, we will as the following questions:This assignment will count 50% of your final grade.